


Paint it Red

by ThunderstormAtMidnight



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Alien Impostor(s) (Among Us), Asian-American Character, Black Character(s), Body Horror, F/F, Fluff, Impostor Red (Among Us), Impostor White (Among Us), M/M, Mild Gore, Nonbinary Character, The opposite of slowburn, background pink/yellow, i'm impatient, okay not really but it does move fast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormAtMidnight/pseuds/ThunderstormAtMidnight
Summary: When it's your very first mission but you suck at doing impostor things
Relationships: Blue/Red (Among Us), Crewmate/Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmate/Impostor (Among Us), Pink/Yellow (Among Us)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 59





	1. Jordan

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Coming back after like 2 years to write fanfiction about a mobile game with little to no plot? it's more likely than you think
> 
> Here's the character list with names/colours:  
> Joanna- dark green  
> Basilio- purple  
> Dante- red  
> Jordan- blue  
> Wren- pink  
> Nevaeh- yellow  
> John- white  
> Everett- cyan  
> Miguel- lime green  
> Finn- orange
> 
> I'll hopefully be posting my art of these characters too if I can figure out how to do that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jordan's first day on the Skeld proves equal parts exciting and frightening.

Stepping onto the ship for the first time sparked a deep sense of excitement and wonder in Jordan. The metallic floor made a soft clanking noise under the heavy boots that he wore, and his suit that had seemed heavy the first time he'd put it on felt like an almost comforting weight after all the training he'd gone through. This hadn't been a childhood dream for him, but rather it had started as an interest in astrology in his teenage years. It had grown from there, and by the time he learned that the National Aerospace Foundation (NAF) was taking on new hires (at an unusually high rate, people noted, with much speculation) Jordan applied without hesitation. He was overjoyed when he learned that he'd been accepted, and finally, after the rigorous training, he was aboard the ship. There wasn’t much time to explore and get accustomed to the layout yet, as Jordan and his nine crewmates headed quickly to strap themselves into their seats in preparation for the launch. 

Understandably, Jordan was most nervous about this part. It was his first time aboard a ship, and though accidents during launch were rare, they did happen from time to time. He squeezed the sides of the padded chair he was sitting on as he tried to take deep breaths to calm himself. The man sitting beside him looked over at him, expression unreadable behind the tinted visor he wore. His suit was a vibrant purple colour. He patted Jordan’s shoulder reassuringly, the gesture being lost somewhat in the thick material of both their suits. 

“First time?” he asked, voice sympathetic. Jordan glanced over at him and nodded jerkily. 

“Don’t worry,” the man beside Jordan continued. “This is my third launch, and they’ve all gone just fine. I’m Basilio, by the way.” 

“Jordan,” he responded simply, his voice cracking slightly at the end as he felt the ship beginning to rumble around him. Basilio gave him a thumbs up as the rumbling intensified, and Jordan felt an odd swooping sensation in his stomach as the ship took off, launching them towards the sky above. 

The launch did go just fine, and Jordan relaxed his tense posture as the view outside the large window ahead of him changed from blue-white to black, dotted with stars and galaxies. Mouth slightly agape, he watched the ship take an almost lazy-looking pace through the stars. He almost couldn’t believe that he was finally there. Around him, his crewmates were shedding their restraints, and standing from the seats they’d taken during the launch. Jordan quickly followed. Everyone seemed to be headed in the same direction, so he tagged along behind them, wondering what their next step would be. The woman at the front of the group led them to a cafeteria sort of area, then stopped at the head of a table right in the centre of it. In the middle of the table was a large red button, underneath a sturdy-looking cover of thick plastic. Jordan stared at it, confused, as he reached the table everyone was congregating around. The woman at the head of the table twisted off her forest green helmet, shaking out her dark shoulder-length hair as she did so. She had dark skin, and her face had a certain kind look to it though her expression was serious. 

“Hello, everyone,” she began. “Welcome aboard the Skeld. I’m Joanna, and I’ve been captaining this ship for five years now. As you all know, we’re headed to the planet Polus for data collection and assessment. I’ll be handing out task lists for the first few days for everyone to complete, but after that everyone should know the tasks well enough to know what to do. We should reach Polus in two and a half weeks. Any questions?” 

Everyone had removed their helmets at this point, and as Jordan looked around the table, he noticed two of his crewmates whispering to each other. One was quite tall, and lanky, with messy pink and brown hair. The other was shorter, and chubby, with long yellow cornrows cascading down her back. Their suits were pink and yellow respectively. The taller one cleared their throat and said, “Excuse me, we’ve been hearing about . . . you know . . .” they looked sheepish for a moment, tucking their hair behind their ears. “Um, impostors?” 

Jordan stiffened slightly. He’d heard rumours of the creatures everyone called impostors when he’d been doing his training with NAF. There had been a lot of horror stories circulating, but since they’d almost always come from younger trainees, Jordan had hoped that these rumours had little to no truth to them. Unfortunately for him, from Joanna’s grim expression, it seemed like these stories had an aspect of truth to them.

“I don’t agree with NAF’s decision to not inform the new hires about them,” she said, her disapproval showing clearly on her face. “Yes, they do exist. You won’t have to worry about them on this ship. We’ll be doing check-ins at the Medbay to search for anomalies. That’s all you need to know about it for now.” 

This topic clearly made the crew uneasy, and Jordan glanced around at the people standing around him in a somewhat nervous gesture. Everyone looked perfectly normal, and their expressions ranged from uneasiness to almost fearful, the latter mostly on the faces of the youngest of the crew. Jordan recognized Basilio from his voice and his purple suit, asking a question about the Medbay-- he seemed to be a doctor of some sort, or maybe a biologist. Jordan could see now that he had long, shaggy dark hair and seemed to be in about his late twenties. He also made note of a young man who appeared to be about his own age. This young man was taller than Jordan, with jaw-length hair that was bleached about halfway down the strands. He didn’t say anything throughout the meeting, but he met Jordan’s gaze at one point and gave him a smile. Jordan looked away quickly, suddenly aware that he’d been staring, but then he quickly glanced back at the other young man and returned the smile briefly. Finally, the orientation meeting ended, and everybody headed off their separate ways. He was headed towards his private quarters and almost jumped out of his skin when he heard someone call out, “Hey!” 

Jordan whirled around, seeing the young man from earlier jogging up to him. 

“You’re new, right? So am I! The name’s Dante, and you’re Jordan, right? I heard you talking to Baz during the launch,” he said with a smile, spinning his helmet in his hands. His suit colour was a vibrant red. 

“Oh, uh, hi,” Jordan responded, holding his own royal blue helmet close to his chest. He should drop it off in the dorm when he gets a chance, he thought. “Yeah, I’m new.” 

“Cool,” Dante said, nodding slightly. “We should check out the ship together. Y’know, since we both don’t really know the layout.” 

“Yeah, sure. Just let me drop some stuff off at my room first.” 

Jordan unfolded a map of the ship from his pocket, studying it for a minute before starting to walk in the direction of his dorm. He threw a couple items down on the bed, then he and Dante made small talk as they walked around the ship, familiarizing themselves with the layout. They’d only just walked into the room that was labelled on the map as ‘electrical’ when the lights suddenly went out. Jordan froze, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest. The room was extremely dark without the lights, and he had no idea what could have happened to turn them off or how serious it was. Even worse, he could hear a low creaking, groaning sound from somewhere behind him. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before. 

“Dante?” he called out in a scared voice, blindly reaching his hand out behind him. His hand found Dante’s, who was standing close behind him. The young man’s hand was cold, almost causing Jordan to shiver, and his fingernails felt more like claws than nails. 

“Wow, your hands are really cold,” Jordan said, a nervous laugh escaping him. Dante hadn’t said a word this whole time, and that was making him nervous. 

The lights suddenly turned again, and though he felt blinded, Jordan breathed a sigh of relief. He felt even more comforted as Basilio peeked into the room to check on the two of them, though as the man did so Jordan felt Dante quickly shake his hand away. Feeling slightly disappointed at this, he simply followed Dante out of the room without a word as they headed off to continue exploring the ship. As they finally headed back to the cafeteria for dinner, they were chatting like old friends. They picked up their food and drink and headed to an empty table to sit. 

“So . . . these impostors,” Jordan began, pushing the food on his tray around with his fork. “What exactly are they? I mean, I kept hearing all these stories during training, but everyone said something different . . . and I don’t think Joanna’s very happy about it getting brought up at all.” He laughed briefly, but the sound was a little shaky. Everything he knew about these creatures so far had come from stories from his fellow trainees, meant to scare each other, and he was hoping maybe Dante knew more. Dante studied him with wide amber eyes for a moment before responding. 

“I’ve talked with some older crew members,” Dante said, placing his spoon down on the table, “and they’re supposedly these shapeshifting aliens that can mimic humans. Nobody really knows what their goal is, but they’ve been known to kill entire crews.” 

Jordan stared at him wide-eyed for several seconds. That information wasn’t much more reassuring than the tales he’d heard while training. 

“Wow,” he eventually responded. “I guess I’ll be locking my door tonight.” He laughed nervously again. Dante gave him a small smile and said, “Yeah, that’s for sure.” 

Jordan parted ways with Dante after dinner and some more small talk, and headed back to his private quarters. He sat on his bed for some time, reading one of the many books he’d brought with him, but he found it hard to concentrate. His booted foot tapped constantly on the ground. There were two things heavy on his mind; he was worried about the impostors, naturally, but he was also thinking about Dante. How it felt to hold his hand, and the disappointment he’d felt when Dante had seemed embarrassed to be caught like that.

Sighing deeply, Jordan stood up and walked over to the sliding door that separated his quarters from the rest of the ship. The lock slid shut with a solid click as he twisted it, and that made him feel somewhat better. But how sturdy would this thin metal door be against an alien impostor? Shaking his head, Jordan went back to his bed and picked up his book to continue reading. Later, in the near-complete darkness as he was trying to sleep, he found himself tossing and turning. Every single faint noise made him jump. At one point, he thought he saw a shadow cross the small window at the top of his door, and his breath caught in his throat. As the minutes passed, and Jordan didn’t see or hear anything else, he finally turned his back to the door and pulled the blanket over his head. Not twenty minutes later, he finally fell into a restless sleep.


	2. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain impostor's first mission throws at him the one thing he hadn't been trained for: a romantic interest

It was a huge event for him. His first proper assignment, and this mission it was only going to be him and one other impostor in a crew of ten. His fellow impostor expressed excitement, but Dante could only feel nervousness as they boarded the ship for the first time. The other impostor boarding with him had chosen a form that was almost excessively tall and thin, with pale skin and sandy blonde hair. He had chosen the name John, which Dante felt was very commonplace, but he supposed that it wasn’t usually names that imparted any suspicion on them. 

The ship’s launch was quite standard. Dante took notice of a member of the crew who looked extremely nervous during the launch; it was likely his first time on a mission. He heard the young man mention his name being Jordan. Dante smiled slightly. New to this ship, just like him. Maybe Jordan would be his first target . . . he’d heard that the new trainees were usually more nervous (or more cocky), but didn’t know to be cautious in the proper way yet. They were almost always easy targets. Dante had been training in a different way from the rest of the crew for the last five years, hearing snippets of advice like that last one from more senior impostors. And now they’d finally deemed him ready to take on a mission of his own-- which meant killing everybody on board the ship by any means necessary. 

Dante unstrapped himself from the seat he’d taken for the launch, following the rest of the crew towards the cafeteria at the upper center of the ship. They had a brief orientation meeting headed by the captain, Joanna. Dante was feeling slightly more nervous to be on a ship with a captain of Joanna’s seniority, but the looks of uneasiness and fear and the crew’s faces when one of them mentioned impostors helped boost his confidence in this mission. He struggled to keep a smug smile off his face as the air of nervousness invaded the room. Looking around the table that everyone stood at, Dante took note of the oldest members of the crew (Joanna, who appeared to be in her late twenties or maybe early thirties, and Basilio, who appeared to be in his mid twenties) and the youngest (Jordan, and two others whose names he didn’t know, who all looked to be about twenty). The older crew members presented a challenge, but this crew seemed to be mostly skewed towards the younger side. 

Catching Jordan’s gaze at one point during the meeting, Dante allowed that smug smile he’d been attempting to hide earlier to stretch across his face. After all, it would most likely just look like a friendly smile to anybody who saw it. Jordan’s eyes flickered away from Dante’s swiftly, as if he were embarrassed about having been caught staring, but then the young man looked over again and returned a shy smile. Dante’s heart stuttered in his chest for a moment, and he frowned slightly in annoyance. What the hell? He looked back over at Jordan, who was no longer paying attention to him, and took in the young man’s thick, curly hair and dark worried eyes for several moments. There was an odd feeling in Dante’s chest, something he wasn’t used to. With a faint huff, he chalked it up to nerves about his first mission. He decided for certain, then and there, that Jordan was going to be the first to die. 

After Joanna ended the meeting, Dante began to follow Jordan as he made his way out of the cafeteria. It would look way too suspicious if he just followed the young man to somewhere more secluded, so he decided to buddy up first. 

“Hey!” he called out, not too loud, but enough so that Jordan would stop. The young man quickly whirled around, looking surprised and jumpy. Dante forced himself not to laugh at the expression on his face and quickly introduced himself. He offered to explore the ship with Jordan, and tried not to smile too widely as the young man said he had to head to his private quarters first. He really had no survival instincts; that was practically offering himself up to die. It was much too early to start killing anyone yet, though. He should interact with more of the crew first, build up an atmosphere of trust. He followed Jordan back to his room, making sure to note the way to it. Maybe a discreet killing in the cover of darkness was the best way to go about it . . . 

Dante shared Jordan’s map of the ship as they spent about an hour exploring its various rooms. He lied his way through talking about his life back home, acting as if he’d had a normal human upbringing. As he and Jordan talked and joked, he continued to occasionally feel that same strange warmth in his chest that he’d felt earlier, as he stared at Jordan’s grinning face. Whatever it was, it felt like it would be disruptive in the long run, and Dante found himself getting antsy. As he followed Jordan into the electrical room of the Skeld, the lights suddenly cut out. Dante’s vision shifted to allow him to see in the dark, a feature that his species had that he was aware humans didn’t. He was about to ignore his earlier thought about how it would be unwise to act so soon, and go in for the kill. He could feel the bones and teeth in his jaw shifting and becoming more inhuman. There was a vent in the very corner of the room . . . he could escape immediately and no one would ever suspect him. 

“Dante?” Jordan called out suddenly, his voice trembling. His hand reached out and snagged Dante’s. They’d removed the gloves they typically wore with their protective gear so they could handle the map better, and Dante could feel the warmth of Jordan’s hand in his. His breath caught in his throat, and he could feel his face reverting back to its human disguise once again. 

“Wow, your hands are really cold,” Jordan said with a nervous laugh. Dante could see Jordan’s eyes trying to search his face and figure out why he hadn’t said anything, but he knew the human couldn’t see very well, if at all, in this darkness. The lights suddenly flickered on around them, seeming extremely bright after the darkness. Dante squinted his eyes, knowing his pupils had dilated impossibly wide for a human during the blackout and now they’d need to adjust. Basilio poked his head into the doorway shortly after the lights had come back on. 

“You guys okay?” he asked, glancing down at Dante and Jordan’s intertwined hands with a slight smile. Dante quickly and self-consciously shook Jordan’s hand off, and nodded quickly in response to Basilio’s question. Jordan looked slightly disappointed for a moment, then followed Dante out of electrical without a word to continue exploring the rest of the ship. 

Later, in the caf, Dante almost choked on plain mashed potatoes he’d been eating when Jordan suddenly brought up the topic of impostors. Why was he asking him all of a sudden? Did he suspect something? He studied Jordan for a few moments before saying, “I’ve talked with some older crew members, and they’re supposedly these shapeshifting aliens that can mimic humans. Nobody really knows what their goal is, but they’ve been known to kill entire crews.”

Jordan luckily didn’t seem to be suspicious, although he did seem very frightened. Dante snorted softly. If only he knew how close he’d come to dying already, and it was only his first day. The young man made some weak joke, and Dante agreed absentmindedly. Seeing Jordan’s expression of absolute fear when he’d explained about the impostors gave Dante a feeling that he did recognize this time-- protectiveness. Oh, no. There was no way that that wouldn’t be disruptive to the mission eventually. He had to get this problem out of the way, and he had to get it out of the way fast. Tonight, he decided, while everyone’s sleeping. He knew the way to Jordan’s private quarters. Basilio had seen the two of them being all friendly in electrical, which meant he’d have the perfect alibi already. No one would even suspect him if he played the part of the grieving friend. 

Dante pulled himself back to reality to make some more small chat with Jordan, but then they went off their separate ways. He headed back down to electrical, making sure no one was around him before he pulled the cover off the vent in the corner of the room and hopped in. He paced the vents for hours, trying to clear his head, but eventually he realized that it was time for him to act. He couldn’t stall any longer; he was worried that he’d talk himself out of acting if he did. He headed to a vent that he knew was close to Jordan’s private quarters. Listening carefully for a few minutes, he couldn’t hear any noises nearby. Dante quickly hopped out of the vent and replaced the vent cover as quietly as he could. Then he approached the door that led to Jordan’s room. 

Peering in through the small window at the top of the sliding door, he saw Jordan lying awake, facing towards the door. Dante quickly ducked out of sight of the window. He was pretty sure that Jordan wouldn’t have been able to see him, but even if he did, he shouldn’t have been able to tell which member of the crew was creeping around at night. Staying perfectly still for several moments, Dante listened to the noises inside Jordan’s room. There was a faint shuffling, presumably Jordan tossing in his bunk, but no movements approaching the door. He looked in through the window again, and saw Jordan now laying facing the wall. This should have been Dante’s opportunity to bust into the room, commit the murder, and vent out of there before the body could be discovered. But seeing Jordan lying there, looking so alone and fragile in the bunk, Dante couldn’t bring himself to do it. Cursing under his breath, he turned and made his way back towards his own private quarters to maybe catch some sleep of his own. Hell, this was going to be a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish there was a way to like comments or something because I never know what to respond with but I appreciate y'all's comments :)


	3. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante experiences more of the Gay Panic(TM) as Jordan offers to do tasks with him. They discover a body. Jordan feels betrayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gore is, indeed, pretty mild

Early the next morning, everyone in the crew received their task lists, including Dante. He stared down at the small sheet of paper in his hands, listing off all the maintenance he was supposed to be doing for the day in a small, neat hand he assumed was Joanna’s. He was supposed to find a way to sabotage as much of the maintenance and repairs as possible. He’d received tips on doing this, as well; tips such as prioritizing sabotaging the reactor or the oxygen supply. Things that would undeniably lead to the death of the crew if they weren’t seen to in time. The words on the paper in his hands seemed to flow together as he stared, unfocused. Having the whole night to think things over, to sleep on everything that happened the day before, hadn’t helped to clear his head at all. Or make his course of action any more clear to him. 

Not paying attention to his surroundings, Dante jumped slightly as he heard a voice to his right. He looked up to see Jordan smiling tentatively at him, clutching a list of his own. 

“Sorry if I scared you,” Jordan apologized quickly, moving to peer over at Dante’s list. “Looks like most of our tasks are in the same areas. Want to do them together?” He peered up at Dante hopefully. Dante paused, thinking. He apparently had gone without responding for too long, because Jordan moved to walk away and said, “ . . . or I could go by myself.” He looked a little crushed. 

“No, no, sorry,” Dante spoke quickly. “Let’s go together.” Jordan brightened up again, then studied the list in his hand briefly. 

“I have a couple tasks in reactor, so let’s head there first,” Jordan suggested. “You do too, right?” Dante nodded in response to his question, glancing across the cafeteria and accidentally making eye contact with John, who was standing across the room. The other impostor was talking to a quiet young man named Everett, whose suit was a bright shade of cyan. He had freckles and his face had a sad impression to it. John raised his eyebrows at Dante, glancing briefly between him and Jordan. Dante gave him a discreet wink, but had no idea what he was really trying to convey with that gesture. He hoped that John didn’t read too much into it. 

Turning his head as he realized that Jordan had been speaking to him, Dante gave him a sheepish look. 

“Uh, sorry?” he asked as Jordan looked slightly concerned. 

“I was saying, c’mon. If we can finish all the maintenance before lunch, we’ll have so much free time,” Jordan said. “Uh, are you okay though? You’ve been kinda spacey.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.” 

Jordan led the way to the reactor, flipping up a panel to reveal a series of glowing buttons that he began to work on. Dante stood some distance behind him, looking around the room that felt relatively cramped due to the size of the reactor in the middle of it. He glanced at his list, then around the room again. He couldn’t figure out what exactly it was that he was supposed to be doing. Jordan glanced back at him, raising an eyebrow slightly. 

“Don’t you, uh . . . have tasks to do?” he asked. Dante quickly walked up to the console that was laid out in front of the reactor, and began pressing some random buttons on a pad that looked relatively harmless. They made soft beeping noises as he did so. He thought he probably wasn’t doing anything that was contributing to the overall maintenance for the day, and he could justify to himself that he might very well be sabotaging something. After a few minutes, he moved on to fiddling with something else that looked more or less benign, and then Jordan announced that he was done everything he had to do in the room and they could move on to the next. 

Walking around to do these little tasks that required little concentration (mostly because Dante wasn’t actually really doing anything) while Jordan chatted gave Dante plenty of time to consider his inner turmoil. This was his first mission ever, and he already couldn’t bring himself to kill the first target that he’d picked out. Maybe, he thought, he should just go for someone else first. Maybe one of the senior crew members. Then he could gain the experience of what it was like to kill a crew member, as well as having the added benefit that killing a more experienced crew member would definitely shake up everybody else’s confidence. On the other hand, though, he was more likely to get caught if he went after a more senior crew member and something went wrong. Hmm. 

The sound of giggling broke through Dante’s train of thought, and he looked up from whatever he’d been pretending to do at a panel in the lower engine room. The crew members he’d come to know as Wren and Nevaeh strolled into the room, holding hands and chatting brightly with each other. They stopped as they spotted Jordan and Dante, but their attitudes remained friendly and bright. 

“Hey!” Nevaeh greeted them before moving on through the engine room hand in hand with her girlfriend. Dante just gave the two a small nod in response, while Jordan waved absentmindedly, absorbed in his task of what looked like refuelling the engine. A minute later, he lowered the empty can, wiping sweat from his brow. 

“On to electrical?” Jordan asked, walking towards the door of the engine room. 

“Let’s go into storage first,” Dante answered. “My last task is in there and you still have to put the gas can back.” 

“Alright. What’s your task?” 

“Uh. Wiring?” It sounded like a question as the words left Dante’s mouth. Damn. Now he’d have to actually do whatever this was, and he still wasn’t sure where the wiring panel was or what to do to fix the wires. Jordan nodded, heading into storage and placing the gas can in clear sight atop a small stack of boxes. Dante quickly looked around the room as he did so, spotting a small panel in the wall near the upper entrance of the room. He walked over to it and popped it open, staring at the colourful wires inside for several moments. It felt so wrong to actually be doing one of the tasks properly. To be fair, he hadn’t exactly sabotaged anything (yet) today, so this wasn’t a huge difference from what he’d mostly been working on. 

“Do you need help?” Jordan’s voice asked brightly from his right shoulder all of a sudden. 

“Uh . . .” was the only answer Dante could produce. Jordan leaned over his shoulder, guiding his hands to two separate bits of a wire that matched in colour. He was struck again by the warmth of the young man’s hands, and his heart almost stuttered in his chest as he could feel Jordan leaning against his back, almost resting his chin on Dante’s shoulder. He was showing him how to twist the wires back together, but Dante wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying or doing. He wasn’t used to anyone, especially humans, being so close to him or touching him so casually. He was oddly tempted to lean into Jordan, and so he was focused on not giving any indication of his flustered state. 

“ . . . so it’s easy, see?” Jordan was saying, giving Dante an encouraging smile as he leaned away again. Dante blinked, prying his gaze away from the young man as he hastily began to work on the wires, trying his best to copy what Jordan had done. Honestly, what the hell was wrong with him? He fumbled his way through the wiring task as his hands shook slightly. Some impostor he was.

Finishing with the wiring, Dante shut the panel and turned. Jordan had been sitting on a cardboard box, waiting for him to finish that task, and the young man’s gaze was towards Dante. His expression was dreamlike, with a very faint smile on his face. As he saw that Dante was done with the wiring, he shook his head slightly and stood. Without a word, Jordan began leading the way to electrical. As the young man entered the room, Dante heard a loud gasp of shock. He sprinted the last couple of steps into the room. 

The scene before him was an absolute bloodbath. A body lay limply on the floor, visor shattered, with a steady stream of red dripping from it onto a pool on the floor. The torso of the cyan-coloured suit was slashed open, and Dante could see something pooling from the enormous gash. Blood splattered the walls and the floor around the body. The smell of the blood was oddly enticing, but at the same time, he felt almost sick. I can’t do that, Dante thought suddenly with horror. Horror, for the fact that he’d almost killed Jordan yesterday, and horror for the fact that he had no idea what he was going to do now. He looked to the vent in the corner of the room, just in time to see a flash of a white suit dropping out of sight into the vent.

Jordan turned towards him, his face a mask of terror and ashy from shock. He grasped Dante’s arms desperately. 

“We have to tell them,” he gasped. “We have to tell them it’s Joh--” 

“No!” Dante hissed, cutting him off. If he didn’t back John at the emergency meeting that would certainly be happening soon, then he would almost definitely rat Dante out as well. Then they’d both be thrown out of the airlock. Jordan looked at him with shock and confusion for a moment, before an expression of understanding dawned across his face, quickly followed by something like betrayal. He quickly backed away from Dante, towards the entrance of electrical. 

“I knew there was something off about you,” Jordan said darkly, turning towards the door, presumably to start sprinting to the caf to call an emergency meeting. 

“Jordan, don’t,” Dante said, meaning for it to be a threat as he crossed the room quickly, but it came out as more of a plea. He snagged Jordan’s wrist, and the young man immediately tried to pull free, but wasn’t able to tug his arm from Dante’s grip. Jordan turned his head to look at him, his expression equal parts defiant and fearful. There might have been a glitter of tears in his eyes, but Jordan blinked quickly and that was gone. 

“I trusted you,” Jordan said quietly, and his voice barely cracked. Dante loosened his grasp on the young man’s arm, somewhat involuntarily. He hadn’t expected to feel so thrown off by Jordan’s sadness, but really by this point he should have known how much he affected him. Jordan yanked his arm free as soon as he realized that Dante’s grip had loosened, and he threw his hands to his sides defiantly. 

“So, go on,” Jordan said, sniffling slightly. “Kill me or whatever.” Dante stumbled back slightly in surprise at the words. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it still did that after all the time they’d spent alone together, Jordan still thought that was his intention. 

“No . . . Jordan, I--” Dante reached out towards him, and Jordan flinched back from the gesture. Clenching his hands into fists, Dante let his arms fall back to his sides. “I can’t.” Jordan laughed, and it was a brittle, sharp sound. 

“What, you’re like, defective or something?” He asked, crossing his arms across his chest in a gesture that was more nervous than anything else. Dante smiled wryly. 

“You could put it that way.” 

Jordan still looked on edge, but he didn’t move away or flinch again as Dante took a step towards him. His eyes flickered towards the body, then quickly back towards Dante. 

“So . . . why can we not turn John in again?” he asked. Dante sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. 

“Because if I rat him out, then he’s going to accuse me also, and I don’t really feel like taking a trip to the airlock,” Dante said dryly. 

“But you have me as an alibi.” 

“Joanna’s taking the impostor issue pretty seriously. They’d probably make me do the bioscan at Medbay just to make sure. Then I’d be busted.” 

“O--kay,” Jordan said. “So then, what are we going to do about him?” 

“You, aren’t going to do anything. I’ll take care of it.” Jordan seemed to shiver slightly at the tone in his voice. “Let’s go report the body.” 

A piercing scream suddenly cut through the air, stopping the two of them in their tracks.


	4. Jordan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jordan accidentally makes himself a target. He's not sure how to feel about Dante, but he's willing to give him a chance.

Jordan jumped, heart racing as a loud scream sounded from some feet behind him. Whipping his head around to face the source of the noise, he saw Wren standing in the doorway to electrical, hands clamped over their mouth. Nevaeh appeared behind them a second later, frantically asking, “What’s wrong, hun?” as she wrapped them in her arms. She looked into the room, her expression confused for a second as she spotted Jordan and Dante. Then her gaze landed on the body near the back of the room and she froze. Eyes wide in shock and terror, she looked back at Jordan and Dante. She began to move back away from the doorway, pulling Wren with her. 

“It wasn’t us!” Jordan said quickly, and perhaps a bit too loudly. He glanced at Dante for a second. “We, uh. We didn’t see who did it. They must have escaped through the vents.” 

“They can do that?” Wren asked faintly, their face almost white from shock. “Oh, my god. We’re screwed.” 

“We’re going to be fine,” Nevaeh said firmly, putting her arm around Wren to help them stand. “Come on, we have to report this quickly, before we’re all suspects.” 

Nevaeh took the lead back to the cafeteria, simultaneously supporting most of Wren’s weight (they looked like they might faint at any moment) and holding their hand. Jordan could hear them both murmuring to each other, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He jumped as he felt something cold brush the back of his hand, and he glanced to the side to see Dante reaching out his hand with a vaguely hopeful expression. Jordan stared at him briefly, feeling conflicted, then looked away and pushed his hands into his pockets. He heard Dante’s footsteps fade just slightly, indicating that he’d fallen behind. Jordan’s heart twisted slightly, but he squared his shoulders and stubbornly ignored him. He was still feeling betrayed over what he’d learned, even though Dante hadn’t necessarily done anything to harm him. Yet, he reminded himself. At the same time, though, Dante had seemed sincere when he’d said he wouldn’t-- no, couldn’t-- hurt Jordan. He thought his best course of action was to effectively ignore the young man until he sorted out what he was feeling. 

Entering the cafeteria ahead of Jordan and Dante, Nevaeh guided Wren to a chair and sat down beside them before leaning over the table to press the red Emergency button that was situated in the middle of it. A loud alarm blared through the Skeld as Jordan walked up to stand beside the table. He sensed Dante coming to stand beside him, but he continued to not even look at him. It was only seconds before the sound of running footsteps filled the air, and the remaining crew rushed into the cafeteria from all sides of the ship. Joanna took the head of the table, looking grim and determined. Basilio took the spot immediately to her right, looking equally as serious, but with a solemn note to his expression. Jordan could see everyone else looking around frantically, trying to see who was missing. They all realized soon enough who was gone, but for the most part, the crew’s expressions were fearful more than sad. Everett tended to keep to himself a lot, and he hadn’t made many friends on the ship. 

“Who discovered the body?” Joanna cut right to the chase. 

“Me and Nevaeh, and Jordan and Dante,” Wren answered. They seemed to be doing a little better. They were still extremely pale, but at least they were sitting upright by themself now. 

“All four of you?” Joanna said, raising an eyebrow slightly. 

“Jordan and Dante were there when we got there,” Nevaeh clarified. Jordan threw her a panicked look, and realizing that she’d sort of thrown them under the bus, she quickly continued, “But I could tell they were about to go report the . . .” She looked ill for a moment. “The body.” Joanna studied the four of them with a critical eye, not saying anything for several minutes. 

“Did any of you see anything?” She finally asked. 

“I was there first,” Jordan said, and he could sense Dante tensing up beside him. “But all I saw was the cover on the vent being pulled back into place. I didn’t see who it was.” He felt like a traitor, not giving Joanna the information he had when he knew without a doubt who had done it. But he didn’t want Dante to be dragged down alongside John . . . did he? Jordan hadn’t even noticed that he’d been staring in John’s direction for a little too long until the man in the white suit made eye contact with him. John’s expression didn’t change, but Jordan saw a flicker of something in his eyes. He gulped, quickly looking away. Had he just made himself a target? He looked quickly back towards Joanna, who had followed Jordan’s gaze to John. Her eyes slowly slid back to Jordan. Her expression was impassive, but Jordan still felt like he was sweating under it. 

“Well,” Joanna finally said slowly. “If anybody has any information, it’s vital that you come to me with it. We can always speak in private, if that’s preferable. If nobody has anything else to add, this meeting is done.”

Everyone broke off from the table, but they all seemed hesitant to leave the cafeteria. They formed into several smaller groups, all whispering and glancing around at each other. Joanna shook her head and headed off into her office. Jordan noticed John slinking away out of the cafeteria, and watched him go wearily. He’d have to make sure he wasn’t going around alone, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to travel alone with Dante anymore, either. Maybe he’d tag along with Wren and Nevaeh when they went back to doing their tasks. Considering that his last task had been in electrical, he was hopefully exempt from that for the day. He wasn’t sure he could face electrical again so soon, even after the cleanup had taken place. Jordan was pulled out of his thoughts as Basilio walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder gently. 

“Hey, you okay?” He asked, his expression clearly concerned. “I know you said you found the body first.” Jordan just stared back at him for a minute, unsure of how to answer. He finally shrugged, feeling like if he said anything, he might break down. 

“You know you can talk to me if you need to, yeah?” Basilio continued when he remained silent. Jordan nodded, and Basilio patted his shoulder before walking off. 

Jordan glanced around the cafeteria. Everyone was still standing off in their little groups; Nevaeh and Wren were still sitting at the table that contained the Emergency button; and Dante . . . was standing alone off to the side of the room, like Jordan was. Dante gave him a pleading look as he caught Jordan’s gaze, but Jordan turned his back to the young man and began heading back to his private quarters. He was intending to lay down in his bunk, place a pillow over his head, and try to forget all the day’s events for at least a little while. With his door firmly shut and locked, of course. He didn’t think anyone would begrudge him that. He was moving at a very fast pace, practically jogging through the corridors of the Skeld as he headed back to his room. Realizing belatedly that he had no idea where John had gone, and it probably hadn’t been the best idea to suddenly run off alone, Jordan’s pace picked up even more. He thought he heard the sound of quick footsteps somewhere behind him at one point, but then there was a soft thump and the sound cut off. He sprinted the last couple feet to his private quarters in a panic, and quickly closed and locked the door behind him. The sturdy click of the lock sliding into place helped calm his nerves some. Laying down on his bunk, he placed earbuds into his ears, turned the volume way up, and tried to drown out everything else in the music. 

There was a loud metallic crash. Jordan jolted upright, earbuds falling out of his ears. Music still played faintly from them where they now rested on the bunk. Jordan’s heart was pounding as he stared at the door. The lighting he could see outside of the window was dimmer; he must have been asleep for a couple hours. Another loud crash sounded, and the door visibly dented this time. He was looking around frantically for a weapon, but the only thing he saw that might be of any use was a thick hardcover book. Picking it up between sweating palms, Jordan stood at the ready in the middle of the room. He couldn’t really see anything out of the small window in his door, but at one point something black brushed across the window, leaving a small streak of darkness in its wake. There was only one thing this could be, anyway. John; or . . . But Jordan didn’t want to think about the second possibility. He stood tense in the middle of the small room, book raised to the side as if he were going to hit a baseball with it. He waited for the thing outside to hit the door again. It looked like it would take only one or two more hits to the relatively thin metal door for it to cave in completely. Instead of another bang against the door, however, Jordan heard the sound of a softer metallic noise, slowly fading into the distance. He slowly lowered the book he was holding to his side. 

A quiet knock at the door flinch, and he reflexively held the book out in front of him, as if it would be any defense as a shield. Approaching the door cautiously, he stood up on tiptoe to peer through the round window near the top of it. He froze as he spotted Dante standing there, hand slightly raised in a fist as if to knock again. Instead, he softly called out. 

“Jordan?” 

Jordan stepped back slightly from the door, running a hand back over his cloud of thick hair. A couple hours later, his feelings of hurt and betrayal had lessened a good amount, but he still wasn’t sure if he could trust Dante completely. But maybe he deserved a leap of faith; after all, Jordan had given him that one time before, during the emergency meeting. Muttering “Oh, what the hell,” under his breath, Jordan twisted the lock open (quite a job, actually, with the door being warped as it was) and pulled the door open. Dante had already been walking away, but he stopped as the door opened. He turned back to face Jordan, his posture perking up slightly. 

“Can we talk?” Dante asked, his eyes searching Jordan’s face. Jordan kept his expression relatively neutral as he stepped back to allow Dante to enter the room. As soon as he did, Jordan quickly closed the door and locked it once more. 

“John’s really after you, huh,” Dante said, and as he spoke it sounded like he was nervously trying to fill the silence, which Jordan thought was unlike him. Jordan simply said a quick “Yep” in response as he went to sit on his bunk. Dante stood a few feet away, glancing around the room as if he didn’t want to meet Jordan’s gaze. 

“So, what did you want to say?” Jordan prompted eventually. Dante looked upwards for a second, taking a deep breath as if to steel himself, then finally met Jordan’s eyes. 

“So I have this feeling . . .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hh sorry that it's another cliffhanger, it's a cheap way to end the chapter, I know, but my chapters just keep getting longer as this goes on and it feels like the most natural place to end them
> 
> I've started adding chapter summaries and I edited previous chapters to have them !


	5. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Dante scuffle. Dante sorts things out. Wren and Nevaeh act as matchmakers

Dante stood near the wall in the cafeteria, watching Jordan with a heavy feeling in his chest. After the young man’s initial reaction of shock in response to finding out that Dante is an impostor, he thought that Jordan had been coming around again. Dante had felt hopeful as he reached for Jordan’s hand in the hallway as they headed to the caf to report the body, seeking the oddly pleasant gesture. But when Jordan had flinched away from him, he’d felt that sadness again. He’d also been anxious, and even a little angry, as he was suddenly certain that Jordan had changed his mind and had been going to rat both him and John out. Jordan hadn’t, though, so that was a start. Towards reconciliation, he hoped. 

Catching a glimpse of white out of the corner of his eye, Dante watched John slink out of the cafeteria. The only other person who seemed to have noticed him going was Jordan, who looked somewhat uneasy. Dante considered following John discreetly to see what the other impostor was up to, but decided to stay in the cafeteria to see if he could find a chance to talk to Jordan again. After all, it looked like everyone was pretty much going to stay in the cafeteria or at least in groups, so they should all be safe. Dante watched as Basilio walked up to Jordan and talked with the young man for a few minutes. Once Basilio had headed off again, Jordan glanced around the room. Catching his gaze, Dante was about to start heading over to him, but the young man abruptly turned around and walked quickly out of the cafeteria. 

Alone. 

“Idiot!” Dante hissed under his breath, quickly peeling off from the wall and walking across the cafeteria to follow him. A couple pairs of eyes watched him go; he wasn’t making too much of an effort to make it look like he wasn’t following Jordan. He was sure that John would take the chance to strike again if someone else was on their own away from the rest of the crew. Dante felt a strong urgency to protect Jordan, something he’d never really felt before and was surprised at the intensity of. As soon as he entered the hallway, he could hear two sets of footsteps echoing back towards him; a quick, nervous step and an equally fast but more assured one. Dante hurried his pace into a jog. He rounded a corner just in time to see John’s torso split open, a gouge wide enough that it would nearly split a person in half, but in this instance it opened up into a mouth with a sharp, barbed tongue. Dante didn’t think twice; he threw himself swiftly at John, his momentum carrying them both to the ground. The mouth that had opened up on his torso sealed itself seamlessly as if in shock. They rolled once before coming to a stop against the wall of the hallway. Dante could hear Jordan’s (now running) footsteps fade into the distance, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief. Quickly scrambling to his feet, he stomped a boot firmly onto John’s chest as the white-suited man tried to regain his composure. 

“What are you doing?” John growled as he shoved Dante’s foot away from him and quickly stood again. Dante stumbled backwards for about a foot before catching his balance. 

“Leave Jordan alone,” Dante snapped, settling into a defensive position. John threw him a look that was equal parts confused and angry. 

“He saw me escape through the vent in electrical,” John said angrily. “He knows it was me. Why are you protecting him?” Dante didn’t answer, just continued to glare at the man. As John stared back defiantly, Dante shifted his face, his eyes becoming inhuman and eerie and his mouth filling with sharp teeth. Clawed fingertips becoming more prominent, he advanced toward John, a low growl building in his throat. John muttered something and rolled his eyes. Shifting the cover off of a nearby vent, he jumped into it and out of sight. Dante relaxed his posture, feeling his face settle fluidly back into normal human features. He supposed Jordan would be safe enough in his private quarters with the doors locked, and he didn’t want to bother him just yet when the young man had clearly brushed him off in the cafeteria. Dante walked some distance down the hallway until he found a vent that he knew connected to a different system than the one Jordan had escaped into. Making sure that no one was around, Dante hopped in quickly and replaced the vent cover. 

Sitting down with his back against one wall of the narrow passageway, Dante dropped his head into his hands. He had to figure out what he was going to do about . . . well, everything. He was sure he couldn’t kill anyone (with the exception of John, most likely). After seeing Everett’s mangled body in electrical, and seeing the shock and fear on the faces of the crew, he knew that he couldn’t make them feel like that. He’d watched John and the other trainees in his squad go through all the procedures, and Dante had never had that same inclination towards violence that they’d all had. It was just what he’d been told to do, and he’d expected to do it. He’d expected to be excited about it. But the thought of ripping into any of the crew made his stomach turn more then it made his heart beat faster in excitement. The headquarters back on his home planet had sent him onto this ship with one objective, and he wasn’t going to achieve it. What would they do with him if they found out? But maybe they didn’t have to find out . . . 

Dante thought about Wren and Nevaeh. About how the two of them were always together, talking, laughing, engaging in uniquely human rituals that Dante had never seen before but was instantly curious about, like the hand holding that he’d done once or twice with Jordan. Wren and Nevaeh had a bond that was different than those between everyone else on the crew-- it was much closer. Jordan had described them to him once as “girlfriends”. Dante wasn’t quite sure of the meaning behind that, but he’d been hesitant to ask, since Jordan had acted like it was something he should be familiar with. 

Dante analyzed the emotional turmoil he’d been subjected to for the last couple days; the warmth when Jordan smiled at something he’d said, the deep disappointment when Jordan had been frightened by him, the protectiveness when he was in danger. It wasn’t like what he’d been taught he should feel. His heart skipping a beat in excitement whenever Jordan touched him wasn’t the excitement of narrowing in for a kill. Everything was new to him. There was a conclusion that he should have come to by now, but it fell frustratingly just outside his grasp. An idea came to him suddenly, and he jumped to his feet and quickly exited the vent. He set off at an urgent pace in the direction that he knew Wren and Nevaeh’s private quarters to be in. Dante saw that the door was propped about halfway open as he approached, and he poked his head slightly into the room and knocked lightly on the door, a gesture he knew was a common courtesy. 

“Come in,” Nevaeh called from inside the room. Dante stepped in, noting Nevaeh sitting on the bunk with a book in her hand. Laying across the bunk was Wren with their head in Nevaeh’s lap. Their eyes were closed and a small, peaceful smile was on their face. It almost appeared as though they were asleep, but Dante could tell from the small shifts of their limbs that they weren’t. 

“What’s up?” Nevaeh asked, placing her book down on the bunk beside her with her place carefully bookmarked. It wasn’t like Dante was especially close to Nevaeh and Wren, but the two of them had always been very friendly, and he’d thought they were the best people to talk to for this reason as well as their relationship. Dante scratched the back of his neck in a nervous gesture, not sure where to start. Wren had opened their eyes and sat up curiously, but they still leaned into their girlfriend’s side. 

“Well . . . I wanted to talk to you both about something. Or, well, ask I guess,” Dante said hesitantly. “So you two are . . . partners?” Nevaeh nodded slowly, looking confused. Wren raised an eyebrow slightly at the question. 

“What’s that like? I mean, how did you know you wanted to be closer?” Dante continued, talking quickly now as if he wanted to just be done with the question, which he did. Now that he was actually here, talking to the two of them, he felt much more self-conscious than he’d expected to be. Nevaeh and Wren exchanged a glance, both smiling. Wren looked much more excited than Dante would have thought the situation warranted as they motioned for him to sit down on a short stool near the bunk. 

“Is this about Jordan?” Wren asked, placing their hands on their bent knees as they leaned forward. They looked delighted. Dante could feel his face flushing as he glanced away, not answering their question. 

“Well how do you feel?” Nevaeh asked, putting an arm around her partner's shoulders as if to reign them in. 

“Ah, about Jordan?” Dante stuttered as he looked back towards Wren and Nevaeh, his eyes wide and his cheeks still vaguely tinted darker. Nevaeh nodded encouragingly. 

“Uh . . . well,” Dante began, taking a deep breath as he struggled with expressing what he’d been feeling. “It’s like . . . I get this warm feeling? When I make him smile or laugh . . .” Dante went on for many minutes, pausing often as he tried to find the right words. “ . . . but now he’s completely ignoring me, and it’s my fault.” Dante finished with a note of sadness in his voice. 

“Why don’t you go talk to him?” Nevaeh suggested, a knowing smile still on her face. 

“Yeah! Tell him you like him!” Wren exclaimed. Dante furrowed his brow, tilting his head to the side slightly in confusion. 

“That I . . . like him?” he said slowly. “Of course I like him, we’re . . . we’re crewmates.” Dante ran a hand back through his hair nervously as he said this. 

“No, tell him you like like him,” Wren explained further, wiggling their eyebrows suggestively. 

“What they’re saying is, you like him as in you want to become his, uh, partner,” Nevaeh said, using the same term that Dante had used earlier. Dante leaned back on the stool, eyes widening as the dark flush returned to his face. It made sense, of course, but it wasn’t a conclusion that he would have come to on his own. 

“Wow, you are super oblivious,” Wren said with a laugh. 

“Not as much as you were,” Nevaeh said teasingly to them. Dante stood as the two began to lightheartedly make fun of each other, calling out a quick “Thanks!” over his shoulder. He paced the hallways of the Skeld restlessly for a while, deciding what he was going to do with this information. Unconsciously, he’d started heading back in the direction of Jordan’s private quarters. He wanted to say something to the young man, but he was worried that Jordan’s reaction would be frightened, or even worse, disgusted. Dante just hoped that they could at least be friendly again. 

Just then, he heard a loud bang coming from somewhere up ahead of him. Breaking into a sudden sprint, Dante headed towards the noise. He quickly realised that it was coming from the same area that Jordan’s dorm lay in, and as he came into view of the door, he saw John. The impostor had more or less fully shed his human disguise; his face consisted mostly of a gaping maw full of large, sharp teeth. His eyes were big and fully black, and a long, sharp tongue dangled from his open mouth. His body was a large mass of twisted limbs and black appendages that almost seemed to writhe. He was preparing to throw himself against the thin metal door that separated him from Jordan’s room, and the door was already dented quite severely. Dante ran the last couple feet towards John and grabbed him by the shoulders, throwing him across the hall and away from Jordan’s door. His clawed fingers ripped into the exposed flesh of the other impostor’s shoulders, leaving deep gashes that slowly oozed thick, dark blood. John didn’t waste any time speaking this time around, and just lunged at Dante once he’d regained his balance. 

The scuffle didn’t last very long before John retreated, with a slight limp, down the hallway. Dante watched him go for a moment, then took a deep breath and lightly knocked on Jordan’s door. While he waited for any response, he made sure that his appearance was normal for a human. While it wasn’t like he needed to keep up appearances any longer, with Jordan at least, he didn’t want to frighten the young man unnecessarily. Dante softly called out, “Jordan?” and after a few beats passed with no response, he was turning to walk away when the door suddenly opened. He half-turned, studying Jordan’s apprehensive expression with hopeful eyes. 

“Can we talk?” Dante asked. Jordan didn’t say anything, but hesitated briefly before stepping back to let Dante enter the room. 

“John’s really after you, huh,” Dante said, just wanting to say something to fill the silence as Jordan went to sit on his bunk with only a quick “Yep” in response. Jordan watched him with curiosity and wariness on his face, and when Dante did nothing except stand there and fidget, Jordan prompted him. 

“So, what did you want to say?” 

Dante took a deep breath to steel himself, then met Jordan’s gaze evenly. 

“I have this feeling,” he started, resisting the urge to give in to any of his developed nervous tics. Jordan stared at him quizzically. “It’s like . . . whenever you’re around, I feel happier . . . and whenever you touch me, I get this feeling in my chest, like . . . my heart’s stuttering, and I know you feel betrayed, but I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else on this ship. Maybe, at first,” Dante glanced down for a second, feeling a pang to remember that first day in electrical. “But not anymore. I . . . I like you.” 

Jordan was staring at him with his mouth slightly agape, his cheeks flushed darker than Dante had seen before. The young man looked rather awestruck, but he quickly composed himself and his expression turned somewhat angry. 

“Is this some sort of trick?” Jordan demanded, but there was no real force behind the words. Dante took several quick steps forward, hands stretched out in front of him slightly. 

“No!” He said quickly, looking at Jordan pleadingly. “No, I swear.” 

Jordan reached out and clasped one of Dante’s outstretched hands in his own. Dante’s heart skipped a beat as Jordan gave him a half smile that still seemed a touch wary, but it was better than before. Dante gripped Jordan’s hand gently but firmly, and pulled the young man to his feet before wrapping his arms around him. Jordan froze briefly against him, then slowly embraced him as well. Dante could feel tension leaving Jordan as he sighed quietly against his shoulder. 

“I think you should stay here tonight,” Jordan mumbled hesitantly against Dante’s shoulder, sounding slightly embarrassed for suggesting it. “I don’t know how much more that door can take.” 

Dante could worry about the problem John presented at another time. For now, he simply smiled contentedly into Jordan’s hair.


	6. Jordan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John makes move. Jordan stands up for himself. Dante and Jordan continue to reconcile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for body horror

Jordan slowly opened his eyes and blinked blearily. He was momentarily confused by the sound of soft breathing and the weight he could feel against his body. Then he remembered the night before. He blushed slightly; he wasn’t sure when they’d gotten this close, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. He smiled as he placed his hand overtop of Dante’s, the young man’s arm being draped over his body. Jordan felt Dante shift suddenly, and could tell that he was beginning to wake up. After a couple days of being on the ship, they were getting used to being awake by a certain time. 

“Morning,” Jordan murmured. Dante groaned quietly in response, burying his face into the pillow. Jordan smiled in amusement. This had been his third leap of faith for Dante in the past day. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what had made him trust the young man so quickly even after knowing what he was. Maybe it was the fact that even though he’d been alone with Jordan several times, he’d never made a move to hurt him. Or maybe it was just the fact that Jordan always trusted those who he liked much too instinctively. Either way, his judgement had been correct this time, luckily. 

A sudden, sharp rap on the door pulled Jordan out of his thoughts with a jump. Dante scrambled up and away from him quickly, almost falling onto the floor in the process. Jordan got to his feet off the bunk quickly and opened the sliding door, still in the thermals he’d spent the night in. Joanna was standing on the other side of the door, holding a small stack of maintenance lists in her hands. She was eyeing the door with a concerned expression as Jordan slid it open. 

“What happened?” She asked, gesturing towards the large dent in the door. 

“Oh-- that happened last night,” Jordan explained. 

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“I didn’t get a chance to, I, uh, I was too scared to leave the room.” Jordan rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he spoke. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay, but did you see anything when it happened?” 

Jordan shook his head, looking apologetic. Joanna frowned slightly, but she didn’t appear to be suspicious, at least, considering that this was the second incident that he was involved with. 

“We’ll find it soon enough,” she said shortly, handing Jordan one of the pieces of paper she held. “Here.” Her eyes focused somewhere behind him suddenly, and she cocked an eyebrow. The corner of her mouth quirked upwards slightly, and she handed him a second list without saying another word. As she walked off, Jordan realized that she must have seen Dante in the room behind him. Blushing, he turned around to hand the second list to him. 

“Oops,” Dante said, but he was smiling as he took the list. Jordan rolled his eyes playfully as he went to put on the royal blue suit that was currently hanging on a hook on the wall. 

“I’ll be right back,” Dante spoke quietly as he stepped past Jordan, brushing his fingers softly across the back of his hand. As Dante smiled back at him before heading down the hall, Jordan felt a flutter in his chest. He quickly stepped into his suit and zipped it up before sitting on his bunk to wait for Dante to return. There was a certain nervous energy thrumming through his body as he thought about how they’d be more or less alone together for the majority of the day, which was much more daunting now that Jordan knew that Dante was an impostor. Really, it wasn’t all that different than before, Jordan reminded himself. And they’d spent the whole night alone together, thought of which made Jordan’s heart skip a beat as he realized they’d spent god knows how much of the night cuddled so close together. There was definitely a reason aside from fear that incited the feeling of nervous excitement in his chest. 

Jordan glanced down the hallway, suddenly frowning slightly. Dante had been gone awhile . . . he should have been back by now. His private quarters weren’t that far away from Jordan’s, and putting on the suit shouldn’t have taken this long. Worried that something had happened to him, Jordan quickly exited his private quarters, shutting the door behind him. He knew it was a bad idea to wander the ship alone, but he felt too wound up to just keep sitting there and waiting. He jogged towards Dante’s private quarters, carefully keeping an ear and an eye out for trouble. Nothing bothered him all the way there. When he got to the door to Dante’s room, he knocked lightly a couple times, but no one answered and it was dark inside. Frowning, Jordan stood there for a couple minutes as he tried to decide his next move. He thought it would be safe enough to check through some of the rooms of the ship, considering that he’d probably run into the rest of the crew as they did their tasks. 

Heading down through the lower engine, Jordan passed Basilio as the older man refilled the engine’s fuel tank. He gave Jordan a wave as he passed, and Jordan smiled back. The next room to check was electrical, and he dreaded having to check it. It was one of the worst rooms to be caught alone in-- isolated, and with a section of wall that cut the back corner of the room off from view. Jordan felt a deep-seated uneasiness as he approached the room. He convinced himself, for a minute, that when he entered the room, the mangled corpse of someone else he knew would be skewed across the ground. Of course, the crew had only been going about their tasks for maybe 15 minutes, and that wasn’t really enough time for anything to have happened yet. Still, Jordan breathed out a sigh of relief when he entered the room and saw nothing. He remembered suddenly the sharp and nauseating coppery smell that had permeated the air the other day, when he’d discovered Everett’s limp body laying on the floor, and felt faintly sick. The only distinctive smell in the room at the moment was the sterile scent of disinfectants. Jordan took a deep breath to calm himself, and cautiously walked towards the back of the room. He had to check behind the wall, just to be sure. Then he’d book it out of there and continue his search for Dante. 

Slowly, step by step, he edged towards the back corner of the room with bated breath. He peeked into the shadowy corner that was hidden behind the wall. Nothing was there. Relaxing his tense posture, he began to turn to hurry out of the room. 

The vent cover in the corner of the room flew open, skidding across the floor with a loud metallic scrape. It hit Jordan hard in the leg, causing him to collapse to the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he looked down at his leg. His suit was split open along his shin, and a long, deep gash was already leaking blood down his leg. Jordan glanced back up quickly, staring at the vent with wide eyes. In a panic, he began looking around for anything that he could use as a weapon. His eyes fell on the vent cover beside him, but it would bend and possibly even break after a few sturdy hits. Jordan glanced to his right, and found his one hope at survival: a rusty crowbar laying on the ground near the wall. He scooted over as quickly as he could, grabbing the crowbar in both hands. He stood with some difficulty, hissing in pain, just as something exploded out of the vent a few meters ahead of him. He didn’t get a good look at the creature before it launched its first attack, but it looked nowhere near human now. Something shot at him so quickly he could barely see it. Jumping to the side at the same time that he swung the crowbar, Jordan hit something soft that the creature quickly retracted as it let out a low growl. Holding the crowbar across his body defensively, Jordan waited for the thing to attack again. As it paused, regarding him with inhuman eyes, he got a good look at the thing. Its fingers were less fingers and more like long, powerful claws; its misshapen face was warped to accommodate a large jaw full of very sharp teeth. There was an oozing split on its torso, from which a long, sharp tongue dangled. This thing was John, Jordan thought with horror. Then the thing lunged at him. 

Taking a deep breath as he wound up with the crowbar, Jordan hit the thing with all his might as it came for him again. There was a dull snapping noise as he made contact with it, and it yowled in pain. It slid across the floor away from him, but it managed to slash its claws across his hip before it fell away. Jordan barely felt the pain from that injury with all the adrenaline coursing through his body. Not wanting to wait and give it a chance to come at him again, he ran after it and raised the crowbar above his head as he did so. He brought it down hard on the creature’s body, again and again, hearing the sounds of crunching and tearing from it as he did so. It locked its jaws around his ankle at one point, and Jordan cried out, but he hit its head with the crowbar and it let go. At one point, the creature melted into human form, begging for Jordan to stop. He didn’t stop swinging until it fell limp and still, its body beaten and leaking a liquid that was much too dark and thick to be normal blood. The crowbar fell from Jordan’s hands as he collapsed to his knees. He suddenly realized that he was sobbing. The pain from his injuries hit him all at once, and he gasped loudly. There was a sudden commotion at the door. 

“Jordan!” Dante yelled, rushing into the room. He completely ignored John’s misshapen body lying on the floor and ran to engulf Jordan in a fierce embrace. Jordan rocked backwards, a faint hiss of pain escaping through his teeth as the movement strained several of his injuries. Dante didn’t let go of him, but murmured “Sorry” and shifted so that he was supporting most of Jordan’s weight. Jordan clung to him, feeling both horrified and relieved now that he was beginning to process the situation as the adrenaline wore off. 

“What’s going on? We heard yell-” Basilio ran into the room, but he stopped short as he saw the body on the floor. Joanna was hot on his heels, and for a minute both of them just stared at the body on the ground in silence. Their expressions were confused and suspicious at first, but as they studied the body longer, Jordan could tell that they saw something wrong with it. Not to mention that Jordan himself was covered in a mixture of blood and the weirdly viscous black substance. 

“What happened?” Joanna asked. She’d seemed to have known that Jordan had been hiding something at the last meeting, but she didn’t necessarily seem suspicious of him right now. More just simple caution, which was understandable, considering the situation. 

“I just walked in here to, uh, start doing my tasks,” Jordan said faintly. He could feel his whole body beginning to shake. “He just . . . popped out of the vent and attacked me.” Joanna nodded, her expression softening. Basilio was still studying the body, crouched close to it now to get a better look. 

“Let’s get you to the medbay first of all,” Joanna said. “I think the meeting can wait. In the meantime, let’s close off electrical.” Basilio nodded in agreement.He stood and started to walk over to Dante, extending an arm towards Jordan, who was feeling fainter by the minute. Dante smiled at him briefly before scooping Jordan into his arms. Jordan sighed faintly, leaning his head into Dante’s shoulder and closing his eyes. If he fainted now, at least he wouldn’t fall and injure himself any more. He could feel himself swaying and being jostled slightly as he was taken towards (he assumed) the medbay. As he felt himself being placed onto an examination table, Jordan opened his eyes and sat up. Luckily, he found he could support himself now, though he still felt shaky and there was a thin layer of perspiration on his forehead. He felt oddly cold despite the layers he was wearing. 

“He’s in shock,” Basilio said, patting Jordan’s knee lightly, though he spoke to Joanna and Dante rather than Jordan. The older man put a thermal blanket around Jordan’s shoulders, and he weakly held it around him. Basilio also handed him a glass of water, which Jordan began sipping absently. The other three in the room left him alone for a couple minutes, then Joanna patted his shoulder and left the medbay, presumably to assemble the rest of the crew for a meeting. Basilio walked back over to Jordan.

“I’m going to need to take the blanket back while I check on your injuries,” he said, reaching out to take it from Jordan. He folded it quickly and placed it to the side on another examination table. “I’m also going to need you to remove your suit, if you can stand.” 

Jordan nodded. He was able to stand from the table, though he still felt slightly wobbly on his feet and he had to place one hand on the table to support himself. He unzipped and stepped out of his suit, cringing at the sight of the large tears in the material and the stains that covered it. Rolling up the legs of the thermal pyjamas he wore, Jordan sat back on the examination table as Basilio prepared a sanitary solution. It burned as Basilio applied it to his wounds, and the sight of the blood and contaminants running out of the gashes as they were cleaned made Jordan feel slightly woozy again. Basilio bandaged the bite wound and the gashes on his side, but frowned at the slash in his leg that had been made by the vent cover. 

“That’s going to need stitches,” he remarked, already turning around to prepare a needle full of anesthetic. Jordan stiffened and looked over at Dante, who was standing near him by the side of the examination table. Dante gave him a reassuring smile and held out his hand. Jordan smiled back nervously and took the young man’s hand in his own. Dante gave his hand a light squeeze, and Jordan relaxed slightly. He felt the cold swab of an antiseptic wipe on his leg, then the sharp pinch of the needle. He flinched slightly. Bouncing his uninjured leg, he waited for the procedure to be over. He could just barely feel the tugging of the needle and thread as Basilio worked, and he tried to distract himself from thinking about it by focusing on Dante. The young man’s hand felt cool in Jordan’s own, but as his thumb traced an idle pattern on the back of Jordan’s hand, the trail it left felt very warm. He had that familiar feeling of butterflies, even as he could faintly feel the stitches being put in his leg. He smiled as he looked at their intertwined hands. 

“Okay, all done,” Basilio said, disposing of the needle and thread in a nearby receptacle. “You’re good to go, but make sure you don’t do any strenuous activity for the rest of the day.” Jordan nodded, sliding carefully off of the examination table to make sure that he didn’t land too hard on his injured leg. Dante let go of his hand, and Jordan briefly felt disappointed, but then the young man put an arm around him to help support him. The two of them left the medbay together, Jordan waving back to Basilio as they walked out. He began heading back to his private quarters, but Dante paused, stopping him. 

“Don’t you want to tell Joanna what happened?” Dante asked, gesturing with a tilt of his head towards the cafeteria. 

“Later,” Jordan responded, somewhat dreading having to recount what had happened. “Right now, I’m tired.” 

Nodding, Dante walked with him back to his private quarters, but stopped in the doorway as Jordan entered the room. Jordan looked back over his shoulder, waving him into the room. 

“Well, come on,” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. Dante smiled and walked into the room, but his posture was slightly stiff and awkward as he sat on the bunk. Jordan sat beside him and leaned into him, sighing as he finally allowed himself to relax completely. Dante wasted no time in putting his arm around him, and Jordan curled into his side and closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that the reason that Dante was gone for so long was because Wren and Nevaeh cornered him to ask him how it went with Jordan lol


	7. Jordan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when things should be calming down and looking up for Jordan and Dante, everything goes south

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all know the drill CW body horror

Jordan awoke this time with an irritated sigh, considering that he felt stiff from the awkward position he’d drifted off in, and the pain from his injuries was flaring up again. He’d have to find Basilio soon and ask for some Tylenol or something. 

Dante was still there with him, one arm draped around his shoulders, the other holding one of Jordan’s books open in his lap. It didn’t seem like too much time had passed since Jordan had fallen asleep; it was still bright both inside the room and in the corridor outside, and Dante hadn’t gotten very far into the novel he was reading. He looked over at Jordan as he shifted, and smiled. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, closing the book and setting it to the side. Jordan groaned a touch over-dramatically in response, throwing an arm over his eyes. Dante chuckled softly and squeezed him against his side for a moment. 

“Uh . . . do you need . . . anything?” Dante asked suddenly, his brow slightly furrowed. Jordan cracked an amused smile and stood up from the bunk, wincing slightly as he put weight on his injured leg. Luckily, he found he could walk, albeit with a slight limp. He reached his hand out towards Dante, who quickly took it and stood as well. As they began walking towards the medbay, Jordan saw Dante glance down briefly at their intertwined hands, then look away quickly. He could see Dante’s cheek raised in a smile, even though he couldn’t see his face. Humming happily to himself, Jordan almost forgot about the pain in his leg and side. 

Glancing into the doorway of the medbay, Jordan was relieved to see Basilio working on something in the corner. He wouldn’t have to walk all around the ship looking for him, though he wouldn’t have minded that much if he got to keep holding Dante’s hand the whole time. Jordan called out a hello to Basilio as he entered the medbay with Dante in tow, grimacing as he glanced to the side and saw a figure laying on one of the examination tables, covered in a stained white sheet. Basilio caught the expression as he turned in his chair and smiled apologetically. 

“Sorry,” he said as he stood up, wiping his hands on a cloth that had been on the table beside him. “We’re keeping the body to do some testing.” 

Jordan felt Dante stiffen slightly beside him, and he squeezed the young man’s hand reassuringly. 

“What can I do for you?” Basilio continued, unaware of the sudden tension as he continued to smile at the two of them. 

“Uh, I was hoping for some Tylenol or something,” Jordan responded. 

“Of course!” Basilio turned and began rifling through some of the cabinets that lined the back wall of the medbay, and eventually came up with a small orange bottle, which he handed to Jordan. “Don’t take more than 5 a day.” 

“Thanks!” Jordan took the pills gratefully, putting the bottle in his pocket for safekeeping. He waved to Basilio as he and Dante left the medbay. Jordan pulled his now wrinkled task list from another pocket, smoothing out slightly to make it more legible. 

“Hm . . . I guess we start working on tasks now,” he said, with little enthusiasm. Dante looked at him with concern. 

“Are you sure?” He said, frowning slightly. “I’m sure Joanna wouldn’t mind if you took a few more hours off. Or--” 

He was interrupted by Joanna, walking briskly up the corridor towards them, from the direction of the cafeteria. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” She looked sternly at Jordan. He started to respond, but she shook her head. “I need to ask you some questions now, but after that, you rest more. Captain’s orders.” Joanna gestured for him to follow her and began walking back the way she’d come. Jordan called out “Yes ma’am” in a light-hearted tone as he followed her down the corridor. She led Jordan and Dante to the office, then paused outside for a second. 

“You, wait outside,” Joanna gestured at Dante, then waved Jordan into the office. He squeezed Dante’s hand gently before letting go of it and following Joanna. Once they’d both sat down, Joanna said, “I get the feeling that you knew who the impostor was before today.”

Jordan froze briefly, then nodded with a sheepish expression. Joanna sighed, leaning forward in her chair. 

“Jordan. I understand that this is your first time on a mission, and that knowing about the impostor situation only after boarding is very frightening, but in the future, if you have any information related to the impostors, you have to tell me immediately. If you don’t, you could be putting yourself and your fellow crewmates in harm’s way. Alright?” 

Jordan nodded again, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment now. “Sorry, ma’am.” 

Joanna gazed at him levelly for a few more seconds, then clapped her hands together and stood. 

“That’s all for now. Go rest.” 

Jordan quickly stood and exited the office, immediately almost running into Dante, who looked slightly uneasy. 

“She knows something,” he said quietly as he gazed into the office. Jordan tilted his head to the side slightly, then grabbed Dante’s hand, tugging lightly to get him to follow. 

“She just knew that I knew about John,” Jordan said, in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “C’mon.” 

Dante finally tore his gaze away from the office, offering a somewhat weak smile to Jordan as he allowed himself to be pulled away down the corridor towards Jordan’s room. The effects of the pain meds were finally starting in, and he was grateful to be in less pain, but they were also making him slightly woozy. He was happy to have an excuse to rest for the remainder of the day. Entering his private quarters, Jordan immediately flopped down on the bunk, and Dante followed with little hesitation this time. Jordan curled up against him, feeling Dante rest his chin on top of his head. Smiling contentedly, Jordan drifted off into a light slumber. 

He woke up briefly sometime later as he felt Dante move away from him and stand. He must have shifted, or otherwise made some noise to indicate that he was (somewhat) awake, because Dante leaned over to murmur, “I’ll be back.” Jordan felt the faint press of Dante’s lips against his cheek and sighed happily, beginning to drift off again as he heard a female voice say something that he couldn’t quite make out in his semi-unconscious state. Not thinking much of it, Jordan rolled over and was once again asleep. 

When he woke up the second time, it was very sudden. He sat up swiftly in his bunk, heart pounding. There was a loud alarm sounding through the Skeld, accompanied by flashing red lights that intermittently bathed the ship in an eerie red glow. Jordan’s first thought was that somebody else had died, and his heart plummeted into his stomach as he vaguely remembered Dante leaving the room while he’d been sleeping. He realized quickly that the alarm sounded different than the one that went off when a body was reported. It was a shrill beeping rather than the low whooping noise of the other siren. Confused and worried, Jordan scrambled out of his bunk. Putting on his suit, rips and all, at record-breaking speed, he ran out of his private quarters and towards the cafeteria. As he arrived, he spotted Wren, Nevaeh, Finn, and Miguel around the table that was the common meeting point for emergencies. They all looked at him with anxious gazes, but Jordan just shrugged. Clearly nobody in the room had any idea what was going on, and as the seconds passed and Joanna, Basilio, and Dante continued to be absent, Jordan couldn’t stand the weight of the anxiety anymore. He sprinted off towards the office, but a quick check inside revealed no one. Running back through the cafeteria, he went to check the medbay with growing dread in his chest. Maybe something went wrong while Basilio was examining John’s body . . . maybe he hadn’t actually been dead. Jordan stumbled as he exited the cafeteria, almost going down as a harsh shock of pain went through his injured leg. Gritting his teeth, he half-ran, half-stumbled the short way down the corridor to the medbay. 

As he almost fell through the doorway, the scene before him seemed surreal. The flashes of red light painted the room in a bloody glow, all the more eerie because the medbay was sort of trashed. Medical equipment was scattered around the floor, something dark was splattered on several surfaces, and a couple examination tables were overturned. Notably-- the one holding John’s body. Jordan’s breath caught in his throat, but then he spotted the body; still mangled, laying limp and lifeless on the ground, still partially covered by a sheet. Confused, and possibly even more anxious than before, Jordan’s eyes followed a smear of dark liquid across the floor, to the corner of the medbay. Someone, or, some . . . thing was hunched in the corner. Humanoid, but something was vaguely wrong about it. It’s arms were just a little too long, fingers ending in wicked clawed points, disheveled hair covering its face as a viscous substance leaked from its wounds. It looked up slightly, and Jordan’s heart skipped a beat. 

“Dante,” he gasped. Dante snapped his head up to meet Jordan’s gaze, his eyes wide and mostly frightened, but there was an undercurrent to his expression that made Jordan slightly uneasy. It was clear that Dante was struggling to keep up the human disguise in a stressful situation, and he was somewhat failing. His irises were much too large and dark, and Jordan could see that his mouth was filled with large, too-sharp teeth as he panted. 

“Jordan,” Dante called weakly, shrinking back into the wall even more. He quickly looked down, hair falling to cover his face again as he clenched his fists at his sides. As Dante called out, the other two in the room turned to look at him; Basilio, who had his hands in front of him as if trying to calm a wild animal, and Joanna, who was holding a high-tech looking revolver and was somewhat less disheveled than Basilio. 

“Jordan, go!” Basilio urged, waving him back. “Get everybody else to the office, lock the doors and stay there.” 

Jordan limped further into the room stubbornly, heart in his throat. 

“Don’t hurt him,” he croaked, struggling to speak as tears welled up in his eyes, partially from straining the injuries on his leg, and partially out of fear for Dante’s safety. Joanna looked at him like he was crazy. 

“Wh--” She began to speak, but a sudden movement from the corner of the room made her flinch slightly. 

A loud crack filled the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter this time, and another cliffhanger, sorryyy  
> The story felt very unfinished but at Chapter 6 I'd written all of the plot that I had pre-planned so updates are going to get slower now since I have to figure out where it's going to go from here 
> 
> subconsciously made Jordan a sleepy mf but that's a mood
> 
> The next chapter should be some art of Jordan and Dante though, if I can figure out how to put that up :)


	8. Jordan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The secret is out. Jordan and Nevaeh have a talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter drastically changes direction several times so,, get ready
> 
> I may have gotten a little bit,,, carried away,,,, oops

Dante let out a cry of pain as the bullet grazed his side, then struck the metal wall of the medbay and bounced off to finally embed itself in an examination table. Jordan’s heart pounded painfully as he sprinted over to Dante, his feet skidding in the dark blood smeared across the floor. He threw himself in front of Dante, spreading his arms out as he gasped for breath. Joanna lowered the gun, but gestured with it towards the door. 

“Jordan, leave,” she ordered sternly, beginning to advance towards him. Basilio lunged forward, as if he intended to grab Jordan and pull him away from Dante. Jordan jumped back from his grasp, standing almost against Dante’s chest now. He reached behind him slightly, palm open, and after a couple seconds, he felt Dante’s hand hesitantly grab his own. He almost shivered, feeling that Dante’s hand was cold and clammy, and felt sticky with something that was most likely blood. His clawed fingernails were more prominent now, and he was holding Jordan’s hand more gently than usual. Jordan squeezed his hand briefly, stubbornly standing his ground. 

“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone,” Jordan said, gaze flicking between Joanna and Basilio as they both watched him tensely. They both seemed to be watching for an opening where they could pry Jordan and Dante apart. 

“He’s an impostor,” Joanna said as she raised an eyebrow. Jordan stayed silent, lifting his chin defiantly. Basilio indicated the trashed medbay, and it was then that Jordan really noticed his injuries as well as Joanna’s. It was clear that they’d been in some kind of scuffle, but the injuries were nowhere near as bad as the ones he’d received from John. Judging by the amount of the impostor blood (or whatever it was) that was splattered around the medbay, Dante was considerably worse for wear than the two crewmates were. 

“He’s had plenty of opportunities to kill me,” Jordan continued. “If he was going to do anything, he would have by now.” 

Joanna and Basilio exchanged a long look. Joanna slowly lowered the firearm in her hand, but her grip on it stayed tight. 

“I guess he could have easily killed me before Joanna got the gun,” Basilio finally said, but his expression was still wary as he looked back towards Jordan and Dante. “But he didn’t.” His brow furrowed thoughtfully as he gazed at them. 

A sudden surprised gasp came from the doorway to the medbay, followed by the sounds of low murmuring. The four who had been left in the cafeteria had clearly gotten impatient while waiting for news of why the siren had gone off, and had come to investigate. 

“Did you get it?” Finn asked, eyes widening as he looked at the destruction in the medbay. Jordan felt Dante’s hand grip tighter around his, claws digging into the back of his hand slightly. There was an odd fluid sensation against his palm, and he glanced over his shoulder to see that Dante had shifted back to his human disguise. He gave Jordan a small smile, but his eyes were still a little frantic. The shift back had occurred slightly too late, as the shocked murmuring from the crowd at the doorway grew louder. Jordan could see some confused expressions, but most displayed a surprised realization as they read the scene before them. Joanna sighed deeply and sprang into action, walking briskly towards the door. 

“Everyone, back to the cafeteria,” she ordered as she ushered them back out of the medbay. “We’ll meet you there shortly to discuss everything.” 

As soon as the four of them were gone back to the cafeteria, Joanna locked eyes with Dante. 

“You’re off the hook for now,” she said seriously, with a hint of threat in her voice. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on you, and if there’s anything to indicate a threat to my ship or my crew, you’re done.” 

Dante nodded once, quickly, and the tension went out of Jordan’s body all at once as it seemed that the situation was diffused. Basilio had opened one of the drawers on the back wall of the medbay and pulled out a roll of gauze and some medical tape. Joanna placed her revolver down as she began righting tables and tidying up the various objects scattered around the medbay. Sitting down gingerly on one of the examination tables, Dante looked tense as Basilio approached him. Jordan stopped him, holding out a hand to take the gauze and tape from him. Basilio paused for a moment, then nodded, handing him the supplies and going to help Joanna with the cleanup. Jordan grabbed a cloth from the back wall, wetting it under warm water from a tap on the counter and walking over to where Dante sat. As Jordan began cleaning his wounds, he murmured, “Thank you.” 

“For what?” Jordan looked up at him quizzically. “Of course I was going to defend you.” 

“They were right to be on edge.” Dante looked away, grimacing. “I panicked last minute about the scan and I . . . technically attacked Basilio first.” 

Jordan glanced back at Basilio, who was beginning to mop the floor. 

“I gotta say, doesn’t seem like he’s doing all that badly.” Jordan raised his eyebrows at Dante as he began taping sections of gauze over his injuries. Dante shrugged, not quite meeting Jordan’s gaze. He lowered his voice even more as he spoke again. 

“And if you hadn’t come in when you did . . . I don’t know, things were getting hazy. I know I was about to lash out.” 

Jordan set down the gauze and tape, and rested a hand on the side of Dante’s face. Seemingly despite himself, Dante leaned into the touch slightly. Jordan smiled. 

“You panicked. It happens,” he said, then laughed. “I punched my doctor one time, you know.” 

Dante finally smiled at him, but he looked vaguely confused at the same time. “Doctor?” 

“Um . . . kind of like Basilio,” Jordan responded, as he went to put the gauze away. Dante slid down off the examination table. At this point, Joanna and Basilio had gotten the medbay more or less back to normal. Basilio looked over at Jordan and Dante as he tossed one final item into a cabinet drawer. 

“Ready?” He asked, brushing at the front of his suit in an attempt to wipe off some of the dust and stains. Most of them just smeared, and Basilio made a face. Turning his face to hide his amused smile, Jordan grabbed Dante’s hand. As they looked at each other, the mood in the room once again became nervous. Joanna and Basilio led the way back to the cafeteria, with Dante trailing behind slightly, but maintaining a firm grip on Jordan. Jordan could feel how tense he was, and he gave him a small smile that he hoped was reassuring. 

The four other crew members were crowded around the far side of the emergency meeting table, and they fell silent suddenly as the small party led by Joanna entered the room. Joanna and Basilio walked right up to the table, but Dante hung back slightly, and Jordan stayed by his side. Joanna gave a brief rundown of the events that had transpired in the medbay as several curious, shocked gazes glanced between Joanna, Jordan, and Dante. 

“ . . . we’ll be keeping an eye on the situation, but he seems to be non-violent,” Joanna finished. “Any questions?” 

“Why is he allowed to stay?” Wren blurted out. “I mean . . . he could kill us at any minute. Um . . . no offense.” They made eye contact briefly with Dante as they said the last part, looking extremely nervous as they did so. 

“Like I said, we’ll be monitoring him closely, and so far, he doesn’t seem to present any threat,” Joanna responded. “Anyone else?” 

The three other crew members stayed silent, clearly not looking happy about the situation, but not protesting it either. Joanna dismissed everyone, and headed towards her office, followed by Basilio. Wren, Nevaeh, Finn and Miguel more or less stayed where they’d been standing the whole time, pointedly not looking at Jordan and Dante as they tried somewhat to act natural. Rolling his eyes slightly, Jordan tugged on Dante’s hand lightly to start heading back to his private quarters. His injured leg and side had begun aching fiercely now that he wasn’t so concentrated on defending Dante, and he just wanted to take some more painkillers and get away from the judging eyes of the rest of the crew. Dante followed him with little resistance, walking evenly beside him this time. Jordan could almost feel the four pairs of eyes watching them as they headed down the corridor away from the cafeteria. 

“They’re all suspicious of me now,” Dante sighed. “And probably of you, too.” 

“They’ll come around eventually,” Jordan said with a confidence he didn’t really feel. 

They spent the rest of the short walk in silence, footsteps ringing off the walls of the corridor as they went. As soon as they entered Jordan’s private quarters, he grabbed a glass of water sitting on a stool near his bunk and took another Tylenol. Dante had already sat down on the bunk, and Jordan quickly sat beside him, throwing his legs over Dante’s lap and leaning into him. They sat like that for several minutes, and Jordan felt the day’s stress gradually leaving his body. In a couple days, he was sure, the crew would see that Dante really meant no harm, and everything would go back to normal. Jordan was broken out of his thoughts as Dante said his name quietly. He looked up at the young man, heart stuttering in his chest as he found Dante’s face just inches from his own. His breath caught in his throat as Dante cupped his face gently with one hand, then closed the distance between them. Jordan’s eyes fluttered closed as Dante kissed him, and he threw an arm around Dante’s neck. The young man pulled back after several moments, panting, and this time Jordan leaned in to catch Dante’s lips. Dante tilted his head to deepen the kiss, tongue swiping across Jordan’s lower lip. He made an almost involuntary sound in the back of his throat as Dante tangled his fingers in his hair, and--

There was a timid knock at the door. Jordan considered ignoring it, but then sighed and moved to stand up. Dante held onto him for a second, leaning towards him to lay a lingering kiss just under his jawline. Jordan shivered slightly as Dante grinned at him, and he had to take a moment to steady himself on his feet before walking quickly over to the door. There was another knock, more insistent this time, just before Jordan slid the door open. The door opened to reveal Nevaeh, who smiled up at Jordan somewhat halfheartedly, fist still raised. 

“Oh! Hi,” she said with a cheeriness that sounded slightly false. She glimpsed Dante on the bunk behind Jordan, and though she didn’t seem at all surprised, she still faltered slightly. “I wanted to talk to you,” she continued as she looked back at Jordan. “Um, alone?” 

“Uh, sure,” Jordan said as he looked back over his shoulder at Dante and shrugged apologetically. Dante stood from the bunk, stopping beside Jordan on his way out the door. Cupping Jordan’s face in both his hands, he kissed him just a touch longer than was probably appropriate considering the company. Jordan was blushing deeply and feeling vaguely stunned as Dante walked away backwards for several steps, winking, before he turned with a wave and walked out of sight. Jordan stepped back and waved Nevaeh into his room. Nevaeh, looking vaguely uneasy, moved the glass of water from the stool before sitting down on it as Jordan sat on the bunk, hands folded in his lap. 

“How can you stand to be alone with . . . him?” Nevaeh asked incredulously, glancing down the corridor that Dante had just departed down. 

“He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me,” Jordan said, immediately defensive on Dante’s behalf. “Or anyone else.” 

Nevaeh looked unconvinced. She continued, “Honestly, I thought I was going to find you murdered or something.” Jordan simply frowned in response. 

“Um . . . is that what you came to say?” Jordan’s tone was a little sharper than he’d intended, and even he winced slightly, but he didn’t say anything to soften the words. 

“I just think you should be careful.” Nevaeh didn’t look offended, or judgemental anymore, but instead she seemed concerned. Jordan’s expression softened. 

“I am. I’ve, uh, known for awhile actually.”

Nevaeh shot him a look at this. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I knew everyone would react like this!” Jordan grew somewhat more defensive again. “I mean, what would you do if it was Wren?” 

Nevaeh was silent for several seconds. “Right, I guess I see what you mean.” 

“Thanks for being concerned,” Jordan said, giving her a small smile. “But I’ll be fine.” 

She smiled at him in return, and it seemed genuine this time as she stood up from the stool. 

“I should get going,” Nevaeh said, twisting a few of her braids around a finger. “I came over here while Wren was doing tasks with Finn, and I told them I wouldn’t be long.” 

“No problem,” Jordan said, standing shortly after she did. He assumed that Dante wouldn’t want to hover, so he likely had gone back to his private quarters while Jordan and Nevaeh talked. 

“You know, you’re welcome to stop by anytime,” Nevaeh offered as the two of them stood in the doorway of Jordan’s room. “Even with the whole crew, it gets kinda lonely sometimes. You should come and chat soon.” 

“I’ll do that, thanks,” Jordan said. At least it seemed like Nevaeh had come around. Wren was more of a nervous person, but with Nevaeh’s help, at least Jordan could most likely count on the two of them as friends. Nevaeh waved as she quickly walked off in what looked like the direction of the upper engine. Jordan shut the door to his room behind him as he also started off down the corridor, though in the opposite direction that Nevaeh had gone. Remembering where he’d left off with Dante, Jordan blushed, his heart beating faster than usual as he approached the door to Dante’s room. The door slid open before he could barely even knock, and Dante’s arms wrapped around his waist, sweeping him into the room and shutting the door behind him in one swift motion. 

“How’d it go with Nevaeh?” Dante asked, leaning his forehead against Jordan’s. 

“Good,” Jordan responded breathlessly, finding himself unable to compose himself enough to elaborate on that. Dante hummed quietly in response, kissing softly along Jordan’s jawline. Jordan gasped, throwing his arms around Dante’s neck. 

“Where were we?” Dante murmured, lips brushing against Jordan’s ear. Jordan turned his head to catch Dante’s in an almost desperate kiss, his knees feeling weak as Dante growled quietly into his mouth. All of Jordan’s remaining anxieties about the day’s events quickly left his mind as he lost himself in the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway it's quarantine I'm touch-starved and I don't think anyone can blame me
> 
> I have some more art of them on the way !


	9. Art

Here's the better digital art! It's a little messy because I'm still getting used to a new computer aha

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't proofread this or put it through any online editors or anything so if you see any errors please feel free to point them out lol


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